Sweden’s Biggest File-Sharing Case Goes to Retrial
Written by enigmax on January 08, 2008A court case involving a man who allegedly made 23,000 music tracks and 30 movies available on file-sharing networks will go to a retrial. The outcome of the case could decide if, in the future, police are entitled to raid file-sharers homes in pursuit of evidence.
According to a report in The Local, Sweden’s biggest court case against a single file-sharer has been ordered to a retrial.
A 31 year old man from Linköping, Sweden was initially charged with making 23,000 music tracks, 30 movies and an ‘educational item’ available for download. However, doubts surrounding Sweden’s Anti-Piracy Agency’s (APB) use of questionable investigative techniques forced the prosecutor to withdraw most of the charges, apart from those relating to the movies.
TorrentFreak spoke with Rick Falkvinge, leader of the Swedish Pirate Party, who commented on the case: “The public prosecutor dropped the bulk of the charges but the record industry decided to pick up the dropped ball and press ahead as a private criminal charge (’enskilt åtal’), meaning they have to act as a prosecutor themselves before a judge and jury.”
Speaking for the IFPI, Lars Gustafsson said: “We maintain that the technical evidence is sufficient. We have received an inquiry from the court if we would like to continue with the music file-sharing as its own indictment and we have said we would”
The court did not feel the need to allow a judgement based on the reduced charges in the case of the movies, and ordered a retrial.
“It is remarkable that public funds are spent on redoing the trial despite the fact that the public prosecutor decided to drop most of the charges,” Rick Falkvinge told TorrentFreak. “The record industry frequently states they have no desire to become a private police force, but these days, it looks like they more frequently put their foot than their money where their mouth is.”
Of additional interest is that this case reflects other file-sharing situations around Europe as it wrestles over the legal status of non-commercial file-sharing cases. Currently, illegal file-sharing is treated as a civil law issue in most of Europe, (there are exceptions) but the pressure from organizations such as the IFPI suggests they would love to bring it into the criminal domain. A conviction in this case resulting in prison time and financial penalties opens up the possibility that police searches could be carried out in search of evidence against petty file-sharers, something which is forbidden at the moment.
New European data retention laws which came into play on January 1st 2008, also open up the serious concern that data gathered for the purpose of fighting criminal cases (organized crime, terrorism etc), could be misused to provide evidence in civil cases. Fortunately, the debate in Germany has addressed this issue early, after the music industry demanded access to the data to threaten file-sharers. German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries declared that the data could only be used by the police and prosecutors office, keeping the application of such data firmly in the criminal domain.
In the Swedish case, although the removal of the other charges relating to the thousands of music files is likely to be a relief, those relating to the 30 movies still have the potential to be quite financially punishing . In June 2006 a 26-year old man was found guilty of uploading a single movie using Direct Connect, which cost him a 16,000 kronor fine ($2,500).
Previously: WeStream: Streaming Music From A Torrent File
Next: The Pirate’s Dilemma
31 Responses
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Misuse is an understatement. Too bad about that guy with the 16,000 kronors as well… i wonder how they single these people out?
Retrials are bad press, this is definitely a shot in the dark for the prosecutor. There might be a precedent, but a lot can happen in 2 years. I wish I knew more about Sweden’s judicial system.
There was no bloody doubt the IFPI would get involved one way or the other just to at least keep this type of story in the current media frenzy. They must not have anything better to do than to continue to waste there trillons of dollars on cases like these.
It would be wonderful if the IFPI could spend that money on finding cures to diseases or catch real killers on the loose. Oh wait my bad. The IFPI only knows two things: Make lots of money and be greedy.
All the anti pirates need to take a long vacation and relax with some yummy jellybabies!
Leave the torrents and the p2p community alone. Were happy with our music. Be happy with your 5 mansions, 20 cars, parties every week lifestyle. And for pete’s sake try some jellybabies and relax.
Give me a shotgun and a location, some cash would be nice too.
You forgot a crucial comment from the prosecutor.
“- This shows that a trial maybe isn’t the best way to stop piracy, says prosecutor Britt-Louise Viklund.
The case has according to Viklund taken an unproportionally amount of resources compared to the crime in question.”
The RIAA has no regard for Human rights and fair justice.
Heck your not suppose to get a retrial after the judge made the decision, and if the prosecutor doesn’t think the charge is fair and just, then an appeal.
Now the RIAA can hack your computer, declare riping purchased CDs illegal, sue people whether their innocent or not, and make lies.
Heck I wouldn’t be surprised if Al-Queda attacked the RIAA because of the junk their doing and policing the world, making everyone their slaves while corporates use sweatshop slavery while jacking up the prices in the USA (gas, milk, eggs), heck I wouldn’t be surprisecd if any terrorist, freedom fighter, and We the people start attacking the RIAA and threatening Civil Wars against the Bush Administration.
Heck he disobeyed the constitution, lied to the people, been responsible for almost 1 million Iraqi deaths and about 4,000 American troops.
Bush a war criminal and deserves to get the death penalty, he & his buddy Clinton is the reason File-sharing is illegal.
In fact doing attacks against the RIAA is not terrorism, it is actually patriotic because the RIAA is the real terrorists.
Fighting a civil war is what the decleration of
Independence would have wanted, we need to bring down this country, maybe thats why the terrorists hate us much because Bush, The U.S Government are the terrorists and we used Osama for selfish reasons, we just left the Iraqi people.
WE ARE THE TERRORISTS, unless we fight the Bush Administration, hold him accountable for War Crimes, and impeach him.
Impeach Bush, arrest the RIAA, bring back the Constitution, bring back our freedoms and Human rights.
Follow the constitution, stop policing the world, stop lying to the people, hire Ron Paul to be our president.
Yep. sure.
I think the terrorists are pissed at the Jews “taking” their land.
Plus some of the terrorists want to take over the world.
Even if any of them knew how to use a computer, I doubt they’d give a rats ass about stealing music.
make babies not bombs :(
Well Americas done for, Canadians hate America, Mexicans hate america, my Canadian girl friend (not gf) hates America and she shares music with me, UK hates America, a UK hater threatened to send me porn, IRAN, China, well many countries Hate Americas guts.
I bet there will be World War III because Bush wants WWII to happen.
Hes been planning on everyone hating America because hes Satan, and he wants the NWO.
Check prisonplanet .c o m because they tell the truth about the NWO.
Bush is evil, he is worthless, he deserves to be charged with Treason.
i am an intern on a local newspaper in linköping, and its kinda intresting following this. and it kinda scared me a little when a local dude got “arrested”, or what ever he is. i did a poll on the street with a reporter to day and 1 out of 4 people said that filesharing should be ok, as in legal. and yes, i agree on that. maybe i’ll stay in touch about some detail’d info on this shit. by the way, i love this site. hehehe
[quote]make babies not bombs :([/quote]
Well Civil war will happen if Bush continues to take away our rights, let corporations rule the world, he will lead us all into Civil War II CWII.
He has forced us all into a Totalitarian State, he and his bilderberg controllers must be destroyed, or else we should say goodbye (bye bye) to our freedoms and let our soldiers get killed.
Ok lets let our solders die to protect Americans, Lets spy and assassinate people to stop criminals, lets arrest file-sharers to protect our fallen economy.
Lets do bad stuff to protect ourselves.
Vote Ron Paul 2008, or John Edwards, or we might have to fight for our rights.
“[quote comment="258272"]Retrials are bad press, this is definitely a shot in the dark for the prosecutor. There might be a precedent, but a lot can happen in 2 years. I wish I knew more about Sweden’s judicial system.[/quote]
A start might be understanding that Sweden isn’t a shitty common law country, so precedents aren’t set.
Oh, and what’s with the fanboyism? Ron Paul is as shitty as any other candidate.
23,000 songs? Wouldn’t that be the standard now days?
30,000 + isn’t uncommon.
[quote]the debate in Germany has addressed this issue early, after the music industry demanded access to the data to threaten file-sharers. German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries declared that the data could only be used by the police and prosecutors office, keeping the application of such data firmly in the criminal domain.[/quote]
Well… lol?
Miss Zypries has here the 2cnd name “What is a browser?” as she was asked for which one she uses on her private PC and that was her answer.
If the IP data storage really will pass through the constitutional court (what nobody expects, even party members from the german coalition admitted, they just voted for this law as they had to because of the party discipline and they supposed it will never ever pass through the court) it will be only a matter of time until the law will be weakend. At least in special cases, maybe not for hunting down children, but never trust a politican.
Being fined for downloading all those songs could reach up to $212750000, in accordance to that woman who was fined $220 000
no it could not! It´s in sweden, not the insane usa….
In sweden a song costs 9.90 crones, round up to 10 crones. so 10 times 23.000 is 230.000, and i guess that he wins either way, if he will get a fine for all the songs he shared, it will only be like 20.000 - 50.000 crones and not 230.000 crones. so its cheaper getting cought, and pay a fine for what u’ve done, than buy all the albums. thats my guess. does it sound stupid?
[quote comment="258463"]“[quote comment="258272"]Retrials are bad press, this is definitely a shot in the dark for the prosecutor. There might be a precedent, but a lot can happen in 2 years. I wish I knew more about Sweden’s judicial system.[/quote]
A start might be understanding that Sweden isn’t a shitty common law country, so precedents aren’t set.[/quote]
Oh, so your saying that preceding judges don’t influence future decisions? thats an interesting notion.
When did swedish court get a jury? Or is it different when it’s “enskilt åtal”?
Regarding the german data retention and the statement of Brigitte Zypries:
It’s not that easy. Germany will introduce new legislation, allowing IFPI et al. to access data stored by ISPs, telcos etc. for billing. ATM this data is stored together with the data retention “stuff”. It’s unclear how that conflict will be resolved. My prediction: Zypries and other politicians opposed will bow to the “technical facts” (after some lamenting) and IFPI et al. will start the big hunt.
German story about that:
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/101494
A really good english article about the filesharing debate in Sweden right now:
http://digg.com/politics/Political_breakthrough_for_filesharers_in_Sweden
Read it and digg.
u did translate the currency correctly right?
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